James Hughes

Sociologist, left social dem antifascist w/ technoprogressive tendencies, postgenderist, @ieet.org, @citizencyborg on Substack, Bsky & Threads.

[Stuart Buck @stuartbuck1]

Very skeptical that AI simulation will serve as a substitute for experiments in most of these areas, not any time in the foreseeable future:

https://t.co/0EyW0hpakF

[Scott Santens @scottsantens]

More people now support UBI than oppose it across all demographics except for Whites, 65+, college+, and Trump voters. 64% of Harris voters and 57% of nonvoters support UBI. Heads up to you nonvoters, you're going to need to start voting if you want UBI.

[James Hughes @citizencyborg]

You really have to stand on your head to argue that gender transition is "immoral." People are really saying "I don't like it."

[InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022]

GALLUP: Moral acceptability of changing one’s gender hits new record low

✅️ Morally acceptable: 38%
❌️Morally wrong: 57%
——
Net acceptability trend

🟡 2021: (–5)
🟤 2025: ( –14)
🔴 2026: (–19)

[みなづち @minaduchi]

同性婚のない国の、立法府。

全国6つの高裁のうち、5つが違憲と判断した。
合憲とした1つの裁判所さえ、警告している。

「このままでは、いずれ違憲になる」と。

司法はこれほど明確に、立法を促している。
なのに国会は、何年も動こうとしない。

まもなく最高裁が、初めての憲法判断を下す。

違憲の結論は、もはや濃厚だ。
その前に、国会が自ら変えるべきだ。

それでも動かない政府与党こそ、この国の恥だ。

[IEET @IEET]

The Enhanced Games are framed as a liberation: one that transcends biological constraints and acknowledges that modern sports already rely on complex scientific, technical, and financial systems. But this "liberation" is riddled with contradictions.
https://t.co/oKFbJNBgHw

[Jacobin @jacobin]

Sure, the use value of AI may be real.

But the rising costs are real too. At current prices, AI will be a luxury good, not the widespread utility we were promised. https://t.co/pdkIU2qbb6

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

New episode of Bread and Robots with @rjeskow — writer, former @BernieSanders speechwriter, and #technoprogressive thinker with @IEET.

We talked about everything from AI and social imagination to the #generalintellect and left futurism.

🎧 [https://t.co/b9GFU64kA5]

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Europe Wins Again. Obviously.

Armenia went to the polls yesterday. And the results are exactly what you’d expect if you’d been paying attention for the past five years, rather than wallowing in Kremlin nostalgia like a damp sock.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory on Monday, with his Civil Contract Party leading with 52.5% of the vote.  Armenia, a landlocked country the size of Belgium that Russia has spent decades treating as a vassal state, has looked at its options and made a decision that required roughly the same level of intellectual effort as choosing between a Michelin-starred restaurant and a skip fire.

They chose Europe.

This election was less a routine vote than a referendum on Pashinyan’s post-2020 course reducing dependence on Russia and moving toward an explicit European orientation. And Russia, naturally, did everything in its power to stop it. According to Reuters, citing Western intelligence officials, the election faced heavy Russian covert interference, including disinformation campaigns and a plan to transport Russian Armenians into Armenia to sway the vote. One analyst collective described it as one of the largest state-backed disinformation campaigns in modern European history. And Armenia still told them to get lost.

Putin had already warned Armenia it would face economic consequences for drifting westward, and introduced restrictions on Armenian agricultural exports in the weeks before the vote.  Threats, propaganda, economic blackmail. The full Russian toolkit. Result: irrelevant.

Now, Trump, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance would like you to believe that Russia represents some superior civilisational model. A proud, white, Christian fortress holding the line against the Muslim hordes supposedly swamping Europe. It is a compelling narrative, in the same way that flat earth theory is compelling if you ignore every single fact available to you.

Here is one such fact: between 10 and 15 percent of Russia’s own population is Muslim. Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis. Millions of them. Russia is, by its own demographic reality, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith state with a larger Muslim population than most of Western Europe. But you’re not supposed to know that. It complicates the story.

Meanwhile, the Muslim share of the EU population sits at around 5 percent. But the Tucker Carlsons of the world need you frightened, so the numbers get quietly shuffled off stage.

So Armenia joins the queue. Behind Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and every Eastern European country that isn’t currently run by a Slovak who seems to have wandered in from a Moscow focus group. The pattern is not subtle. Every country that has actually experienced Russian influence in practice is sprinting in the opposite direction. The only nation currently moving toward Russia’s orbit is the United States, which managed to elect a man whose foreign policy instincts were apparently shaped by a property developer’s admiration for strongmen with good buildings.

The world watches America and hopes it finds its way back. Most people think it will. Eventually. The damage, however, is already considerable, and democracy, like a soufflé, does not always survive rough handling.

Armenia made its choice. The right one. Obviously.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Pedro Ronchi @PedroRonchi2]

Parada LGBT+ em São Paulo 2026. Gigante.

[Marriage For All Japan – 結婚の自由をすべての人に マリフォー @marriage4all_]

早ければ2026年には、最高裁で同性婚に関する判決が出ます。

「日本に同性婚は必要だと思いますか？」

その声を集めてみました。

この動画を見て、すこしでも応援したいと感じてくれたら、「いいね」や「シェア」をしてもらえるとうれしいです。

Marriage for All Japan

https://t.co/PjNldk5fLq

[James Hughes @citizencyborg]

This is the edited version without the AI's pauses https://t.co/B6VRqdEQXJ

[James Hughes @citizencyborg]

Interesting interview with me by (mediated by?) Cassian AI to explore the intersection of contemplative practice, neurotechnology, and the future of consciousness. Can AI develop genuine awareness? Can technology make us more compassionate? https://t.co/TpFShwkJzR

[共同通信ジェンダー問題取材班 @kyodogender]

LGBTQらの権利や尊厳を訴える「Tokyo　Pride　2026」が東京・渋谷で開かれた。1万5千人が参加したパレードでは、当事者らが虹色の旗を振るなどして、自分らしく生きられる社会実現を訴えた

1万5千人がLGBTQパレード　渋谷「自分らしく生きる」訴え #47NEWS https://t.co/HnnmbQfIqW @47news_official

[James Hughes @citizencyborg]

Even the rich suffer from living in unequal societies with broken safety nets. And the fascists the rich support to protect them from the poors eventually also screw the rich.

[東京レインボープライド #TRP @Tokyo_R_Pride]

／
📣Tokyo Pride 2026 Pride Parade & Pride Festival
ご来場ありがとうございました！🏳️‍🌈
＼

6月6日・7日の2日間、代々木公園で開催されたPride Parade & Pride Festivalでは、多くの皆様にご参加いただきありがとうございました✨

📊 開催結果
🚶‍♀️ Pride Parade 参加者：15,000人（60梯団）
🎪 Pride Festival 動員数：約270,000人
🤝 協賛団体数：256団体

Tokyo Pride 2026はまだまだ続きます🔥
・Queer Art Exhibition(6/4-28)←開催中！
・Youth Pride(6/13&14)
・Human Rights Conference(6/20)

Pride Parade & Festivalレポートもぜひご覧ください！
➡️ https://t.co/gLfbWFutz1

[吉良よし子 @kirayoshiko]

Happy Pride!!🌈

東京プライドパレードに参加！
小池さんや山添さんと最後まで歩きました。

誰かが苦しみ傷つけられる社会ではなく、一人でも多くの人が幸せになれる社会へ。
結婚の自由をすべての人に！

#TokyoPride #TokyoPride2026 #PrideFestival #PrideParade #LGBTQ #PrideMonth

[Jason Poulos @jasonvpoulos]

In order to pass universal programs such as Medicare-for-all, Universal Basic Income, or to expand Social Security, we need to get big money out of politics.

[James Hughes @citizencyborg]

@IEET States and countries are acting to protect the privacy of neural data. #philbcis26

[IEET @IEET]

Dr. Brian Edlow speaking on using neurotechology to detect covert consciousnesss in patient's unable to communicate who appear unconscious. Pts with covert consciousness are more likely to recover from coma. #philbcis26

[IEET @IEET]

Coming up at our Philosophy of BCIs conf, Stephen Damianos of the Neurorights Foundation on "Governance and Neurotechnology" #philbcis26
https://t.co/cZvKTlAMLF